Paperclip
by Rennes
Summary: One day, Raito gets fed up with the Microsoft grammar paperclip, and this leads him down a path of irrevocable destruction and...stuff. Possible LxRaito in later chapters.
1. The Battle Begins

**An Epic Tale of Love, Hate, Betrayal, Closet Perverts, and Paperclips  
**

*Italics are Raito's thoughts

_Enjoy~_

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**OoOoO**

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Raito was an unusual boy in many ways, but perhaps the thing that set him apart as most unusual from the rest of the world was his insistence on making stupid plans that were overly complicated and never worked as opposed to clean, simple plans. One might argue that his ridiculously competitive spirit was also a unique feature, but that is really more of a fault, as we shall soon see.

Raito had just come home from his surprise meeting with L at his graduation and he was more than a little concerned about what sort of action he should take towards his newly found friend. Raito logged onto his computer and pulled up a fresh sheet of computerized Microsoft word paper. He frowned and let his face fall into his hands, where the cool darkness provided some comfort and allowed him to think more clearly. Silly thoughts dashed his mind.

_So I've met L. Or someone who calls himself L. There are a few possibilities._

_1. He is L, in which case I should kill him immediately  
2. He is not L, but is another member of the investigation team, in which case I should not kill him because it would tell the real L who I am  
3. He is L, but he has already told others about his plan to reveal himself to me, so I should not kill him because that will alert others to the fact that I am Kira  
4. He is some random psychotic loser who thinks that he is L, in which case I should kill him because he's annoying  
5. I want Udon for dinner tonight_

Raito removed his hands from his face, eyes stinging a little as they were re-exposed to the weak afternoon sun trailing in through his window.

"So that's two votes for killing him and two for not killing him," Raito said aloud. "How very helpful."

Since his thinking had gotten him nowhere, Raito decided to make a list on his computer of all the pros and cons of killing this "L". That was likely to get him somewhere. So Raito turned back to the computer screen. He was in the process of writing out point number one when an annoying paperclip popped out of nowhere into the right hand bottom corner of his page. A speech bubble came out of its head reading,

"It looks like you're trying to kill an arch enemy. Would you like help?"

It followed by listing a few options of services that the paperclip could provide, concluding with the option "just kill enemy without help".

"Oh, shut up, Paperclip!" Raito snapped at the offender. "Just go away! Everyone hates you!"

When the paperclip just stared at him blankly, Raito finally sighed, and clicked, "do not show me this tip again". The paperclip disappeared.

Raito sighed and cracked his neck on both sides before proceeding. This was how he always operated. He would write out a scenario in which he succeeded at everything, and then he would try to follow it perfectly, and make the scenario a reality. He had loads of little fictions written out. There was an entire folder on his computer labeled, "Important and Serious Schoolwork" in which he stored these scenarios, along with his porn collection. It was the perfect hiding place from the rest of his family.

Raito tried to brainstorm. Assuming the worst, that is to say, that Hideki was indeed L, he would need to get close to him. But how? Raito pondered. As he thought, his eyes rolled lazily toward corner of the room where Ryuk was watching television. Naruto was just ending and Prince of Tennis was up next.

"Prince of Tennis! That's it!" Raito exclaimed, sitting up straight.

"What's it?" Ryuk turned around. "That show sucks, I'm turning it off now." He made a move to do so, but Raito hardly noticed.

"That's is!" he cried again. "I'll challenge Hideki to a game of tennis for no apparent reason! It's brilliant! There's no possible way this plan could fail!"

"How.......will that help......_anything_?" Ryuk asked incredulously, but Raito wasn't listening. He had eagerly pulled up the Microsoft document again, and began typing out his brilliant plan.

"Yes…yeeeesssss…" he said crazily as he typed, "We'll play a game of tennis and then I'll invite him to a café afterward, and he'll order a sticky cake with pink frosting, and by that time he'll have put his complete trust in me, and_ then..._"

Suddenly the paperclip bounced back into the screen. A new speech bubble was forming over its head. It read,

"Your speech is a little wordy; consider revising to make your meaning more clear."

Raito saw red. He was the God of this world—and this paperclip thought it could tell him what to do?!

"I thought I told you to stay out of it!" he snapped.

The paperclip stared at him expressionlessly, but said nothing more.

Raito narrowed his eyes and minimized his paper.

The document vanished; however, the paper clip remained in the bottom corner of his computer screen.

_…Odd._ Thought Raito. _I was sure that the paperclip was only allowed to be present while writing a Microsoft document. How is it still here? _Raito pulled up his document and stared as the paperclip idly scratched its head with its metal tail. Raito didn't know why he felt so bothered by the paperclip. It wasn't like it was really doing anything. It was just standing on a sheet of notebook paper and staring at him. But whenever he started typing, the paperclip would glance sideways and up at his progress with its bulbous eyes and disembodied eyebrows.

Eventually, it occurred to Raito that he could just click "hide." So he did that. The paperclip disappeared.

Raito finished writing out evil plan #1. He was just about to click "print" when the document suddenly closed. A gray box popped up, reading:

"Microsoft Word has performed an illegal task and had to shut down. We're sorry for the inconvenience."

_"__Sorry for the inconvenience?!" _Raito bellowed. "That took me an hour and a half to write and I hadn't saved it!" He suddenly realized something.

"Oh, _I see_ how it is!" he breathed. "Paperclip is behind this, isn't he?! I got rid of him, so you got rid of my paper! Why, you canny little bastard!"

"Um, Raito, are you okay?"

Raito spun around to find his entire family standing in the doorway, with their mouths hanging open. His mother dropped the fresh load of laundry that she had been carrying.

"Erm...yeah! I'm fine!" said Raito hastily. "Just having some.....problems with my computer...."

"......"

"...right." said Raito's father. "I'll just call Matsuda over. He'll help you tomorrow."

"Thanks." said Raito resentfully. "That would be just _grand_."

XxX

Although Raito wanted to take his time to defeat the paperclip in a battle of skills and wit, he decided that to save time, he should just delete it from the computer. So the next day, Raito's right hand man, ol' Matsuda from the investigation team, came to take a look at the computer.

"I don't know, Raito-kun," said Matsuda apologetically, after examining the computer and attempting to get rid of the paper clip only to find that he could not remove it either. "It looks like someone has irrevocably installed this paperclip on your computer."

"Get RID of it!" Raito bellowed.

"Look Raito," said Matsuda uncomfortably, rubbing the back of his neck. "You're really being a little unreasonable here. It's just a paperclip and obviously someone has had it downloaded and stuck it irreversibly to your computer. You ought to live with it."

"But I hate it!" Raito shouted. "It never blinks and it's always staring at me when I'm trying to write! And I can never beat it at staring contests because it never blinks!"

Matsuda shrugged. "It's a computer embellishment. It's a great tool because it has perfect grammar, so it can help anyone write. Why would you want to get rid of that?"

"Perfect grammar, huh?" Raito seethed.

"Yes. It never makes a mistake when it comes to language usage."

"Damn it! Another thing the paperclip _beats me_ at!" Raito howled in his supernatural rage, causing the sky to lightning and trees to get struck down. Matsuda hid under Raito's bed in terror.

"Look, I didn't mean…" Raito seemed to be trying to regain his composure. He took a deep breath. "Thank you for all your time, Matsuda," he said as calmly as he could manage. "I'll try to fix it up myself."

"N-no problem…" Matsuda said fearfully.

"Oh, and please don't mention this to anyone on the investigation team," Raito added, showing Matsuda the door. "Especially L."

"S-sure…" Matsuda got out the door as quickly as he could, without being impolite.

Raito sighed again after he had left, sinking onto his bed. In the back of his mind, Raito knew that he hadn't killed anyone in three days, and that if he continued on this obsessive streak, then people were going to start realizing that something was up with Kira.

"I need to relax," Raito said aloud. "Let's just forget about this paperclip thing and concentrate on L for a while. Now I'll go work on my computer."

Raito slumped over to his computer and turned it on. He opened up a Microsoft document just as a small gray figure entered lower right hand screen…

**XxXxXxX**

The following morning, Raito make a phone call to the Mac company. L be damned; Raito was going to defeat this paperclip!

"Yeah, hi, I'm having some troubles with my computer that I only bought a year ago so I'm calling for maintenance help," said Raito clearly into the phone.

A pause.

"Yeah, it's this paper clip. The Microsoft Word paperclip. I don't know why, but for some reason it's stuck on my computer. I really want it to go away."

Silence.

"Yes, I tried clicking _hide_!" Raito said. "I even had my friend who's good with computers come over to look at it, but he can't get rid of it either."

More silence.

"It's freaking annoying! And it always _stares_ at me while I'm writing!"

A brief pause.

"Alright. Ten thirty."

Raito hung up the phone, rubbing his temples.

A computer programmer arrived at Raito's house at ten thirty to check out Raito's desktop. He frowned as he repeatedly tried to delete the Microsoft Word help device.

"Very strange computer you've got here," the man muttered, wiping the back of his sticky neck with his fingers, causing Raito to flinch. "I think I'm going to have to reprogram the entire computer."

"Do what you must," said Raito.

So the man reprogrammed the computer. It took about two hours, but he completely wiped all the help archives.

"That oughta do it." He said, wiping his brow. "I don't think you'll be seeing any paperclips around _here_ anytime soon."

It was just a matter of pure irony that on his way out, the programmer noticed a box of metal paperclips on the kitchen table.

Raito smiled genuinely. Finally he was free from that paperclip. Now that his computer had been entirely reprogrammed, there was no way that it could still be there. NOW he could work on his ultimate plan to defeat L. The brilliant tennis plan. He went to his room and turned on the computer. He opened a Microsoft Word document.

Then he screamed.

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**OoOoO**

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First Death Note fic in a VERY long time.

End of Part One; Hope you liked it!


	2. A Drunken Confrontation

**Part II: A Drunken Confrontation**

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**OoOoO**

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_~Timeskip~_

Raito couldn't sleep at night. It had been months since this paperclip had first begun to haunt him, but he still hadn't figured out how to do away with it. He thought obsessively about the paperclip, pondering its secrets and dreading the next day that he would have to face it. Raito had not killed a single person in these past months because he had been so preoccupied.

One weekend, when everyone in Raito's family had gone out to a play, Raito was so depressed and disheartened that he did something you should never do: he drank alone.

Once drunk, Raito watched the entire third season of the O.C. straight (somehow accomplishing this in a few hours) and then killed the entire cast with the Death Note because he hated the ending. Afterward, Raito stumbled downstairs into the living room and fell into a drunken stupor on the couch.

What was he going to do? He couldn't concentrate on anything, his grades were suffering, and L had been calling more and more often recently to ask why Raito was skipping out on investigation activities. All because of the paperclip.

Raito's eyes crossed as he stared across his room, sinking more deeply into the couch. The colors of his home around him seemed to bleed and melt together in a haze of pigments in his drunkenness.

Then, quite suddenly, Raito saw the paperclip standing before him, life-sized, holding a piece of cake on its metal tale.

Raito blanched and stared at it with his mouth hanging open before getting unsteadily to his feet.

"Wha.......wharyou doin here???" Raito slurred in horror, raising his fists in a threatening way. "Ya......ya've already got my computr.......ya get outta my house!"

The paperclip giggled. "I'm you're friend!" it said. It took a bite of the cake on his tail.

"No ya're not my friend, ya bastard......!" Raito garbled angrily, swaying dangerously as he lost his temper. "Yar......ruinin' ma liiiffffeeeee......."

The paperclip giggled. "I love you."

"Ya bastard, I'll kill ya!" screamed Raito, lunging at the paperclip, but falling straight through him, since after all, the paperclip was just a figment of his imagination.

The paperclip giggled and began to drift up the staircase.

"No....NO!!!! Com'back ya no good bastard an' face me lika man..........I'll kill ya!!!!!!" Raito bellowed.

Desperate to stop its progress, Raito grabbed a candle that was near him and hurled it at the paperclip. Obviously, it went straight through him and instead it hit the tablecloth of the dining table, setting it alight.

"Oh, shit." Said Raito, sobering up somewhat.

Soon the whole house was on fire. Raito only had time to grab his laptop and the Death Note before he went coughing out the front door and called 911 on his cell phone.

XxX

Half an hour later, the Yagamis no longer had a home. Sayu and Raito's parents had come home from the play that night to find firefighters surrounding the house, hosing down a charred frame, while Raito lay flat on his back on the lawn, clutching his laptop to his chest and saying, "Damn! I almost had him that time! _I almost had him!_" over and over.

Since it was pretty apparent that Raito was too dangerous to be kept with the rest of the family any longer, Raito's mother had to tearfully kick him out.

"I'm sorry Son, but you're just too dangerous to be kept in the house," she said, crying. "Your behavior these last few weeks has been inexcusable, and now we have no home. What choice do I have?"

"But Mom, it wasn't me! It was the paperclip. _It was the paperclip!_" Raito cried.

"I'm sorry..." she said.

Raito's lip trembled. "Where…where will I live?" he asked finally.

Raito's father cut in, "Fortunately, we have an answer to that," he replied. "L has very kindly agreed to take you in."

"_L?_" Raito said in disbelief. "Why would he offer me a home?"

"It's not exactly a home," Soichiro explained. "More like a permanent place on the investigation team."

"But....._why?_" Raito asked.

Soichirou shrugged. "I think he said something about feeling bad for wrongly accusing you of being Kira..." He said. He paused. "He might have also mentioned bondage……"

Raito paled. A series of quite disturbing pictures flashed through his mind. "Isn't there anywhere else I could live?" he begged.

"Sorry, Raito, but he's the only one who would take you in," said Soichirou. "And he seemed very…eager. I think he likes your company."

Raito threw up a little bit in his mouth. Nothing he said would convince his parents out of their decision.

And so the next day, against his son's will, Soichiro took Raito to drop him off at L's place.

"Please don't make me do this, Dad," Raito begged, as Soichirou dragged his son up the stairs to the investigation room. "I'll never do it again, I promise!"

"Raito, this is for your own good," said his father. "I'm sorry that I have to do this, but there really isn't any other option considering how you behaved. Ah, we're here." Soichiro stopped before an ugly metal door that L had picked out on his shopping trip to IKEA. He knocked twice.

In the 1.5 seconds before the door swung open, it occurred to Raito that he could have just killed his father with the Death Note to stop him from doing this. But then the door opened fully and L's strange face came into view and Raito knew that he wouldn't have enough time to whip out the Death Note right now and kill his father without L noticing.

"Hi, hi, HI there!" said L in a happy voice.

Raito stared at him. "That was _so_ out of character," he said.

"Hm, you're right." L cleared his throat and spoke again in a much deeper and less expressive voice, "Yagami-kun. What a pleasant surprise."

"You invited me here. How is this a _surprise_?" Raito asked, nonplussed.

L chose to ignore this question, and turned to Soichiro. "Thank you for bringing him over," he said. "You may leave us now. Assuming that Raito-kun has all his possessions…" he added, glancing back over to Raito and nodding at the dark blue backpack on his shoulders.

"He doesn't have much," said Soichiro. "Our house burned down, so he basically lost all his possessions. He doesn't even have any clothes."

"Oh, that's _great!_" said L, his creepy smile widening. "I mean—"

He suddenly realized who he was talking to, and coughed awkwardly.

"I mean, Yagami-kun can borrow my clothes. That's fine with me." L said happily.

"…thanks." Raito said, although in his mind he was freaking out. Why had his father gotten him into a house with the biggest pervert/pedophile in Japan? WHY? _Damn you, Paperclip!!!!_

"Come in, then." Said L, stepping aside to allow Raito into the foyer. Soichiro made a move to follow him in, but L quickly said, "Raito's been here before, he doesn't need help settling in." before slamming the door in Soichiro's face.

"Now, now, now," said L delicately, once they were alone. "I have a feeling we're going to get along famously! Let me show you to your room."

L lead Raito up a staircase and down a long hallway before opening the door to a reasonably spacious room with a large window and a potted plant in the corner.

"You will stay here," L said, although it was pretty obvious.

_This isn't so bad._ Thought Raito. _At least he's not doing anything weird like handcuffing me to him.....yet._

"I'll leave you to get settled in," said L, stepping outside. "I've an intercom system in this place so you can page me whenever you need anything. And feel free to visit me in my _bedroom_, which is right next to yours if you need anything else."

"…"

"…right. I'll do that," said Raito, all the hairs on the back of his neck standing erect.

After L had left him alone in the room, Raito dropped his backpack on the floor. It was pretty light, considering that all he had was his laptop, the Death Note, and a red toothbrush that his father had bought for him on the way to L's place.

After examining each of the three items, Raito chose the laptop and opened it up, pressing the 'on' button.

"Now it's just me and you, Paperclip…" Raito hissed under his breath, opening a Microsoft word document. "There's no house to burn down, and no parents to freak out…let's see what you've got!" he viciously began to type out a school paper that was due in a few weeks, trying to make it as perfect as possible. This was a new habit that Raito had developed. He tried to beat the paperclip by writing papers that were absolutely perfect so that the paperclip couldn't prove itself better than him.

"Yes…yeeeeeesssssss, we'll see who's better NOW!" said Raito crazily, continuing to type.

XxX

"What odd behavior," L said out loud, as he observed Raito from his perving/investigating cameras down in the lobby. "He seems to be having a battle with his computer. What does it mean?"

L pressed the intercom button.

XxX

"Yagami-kun, is there anything wrong?"

Raito screamed and jumped as L's disembodied voice filled his room.

"What—where are you?!" Raito cried, looking around at the plain gray walls, terrified. "You can't scare me, Paperclip! I'm safe here!"

"Yagami-kun, it's me," said L. "I'm on the intercom."

"Oh." Raito now felt like an exceptional dumbass. "Uh, hey. What's…up?"

"I was going to ask you that," said L. "You seem a little disturbed up there. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fi—wait, how do you know what's going on in here? Are you watching me on your perving cameras?"

"For your information, they are very high tech important investigation cameras," said L, idly tracing his mouth with one finger.

Raito knew that had to be a lie, but then he was distracted by a far more pressing matter: When L had scared him by suddenly paging him on the intercom, Raito had jumped and accidentally pressed the wrong key on his computer and had consequently misspelled the word "sesquipedalian". Why he was using the word sesquipedalian in one of his high school essays was anyone's guess.

BUT, most importantly, this minor spelling error had caused the computer to put a red squiggly line under it and then.......

The dreaded paperclip came up, telling Raito that he had misspelled a word. A little speech bubble came out of its head reading,

"It looks like you misspelled that word. Did you mean…  
Sequester? Senile? Secular? Soup? Etc."

"Why, you horrid little bastard!" Raito shouted, forgetting that L was watching him. "Did I mean 'soup'? _Did I mean 'soup'_? How in _Kira's name_ do you think that I would accidentally spell 'soup' as 'sesquipedalian'?! Moreover, do you really think I am so stupid that I wouldn't know how to spell the word _soup_?" Raito broke off, panting. L watched in silence.

"It looks like you're experiencing some computer difficulties," said L finally. "Want to come downstairs and use one of the desktops?"

Raito twitched. The way L had posed that question sounded exactly like how the paperclip would have asked it.

"I'm fine…" he said in a constrained voice. "There's nothing wrong."

"Really?" L cocked his head to one side. "It seems like there is."

"There's nothing wrong! I'm not having any problems whatsoever! I'm certainly not having any problems with a paperclip on my computer!"

"Why won't you tell me, Raito? Why won't you let me in! After all we've been through together?"

"We hardly know eachother!" Raito bellowed. "And it's NOTHING!"

Raito turned furiously back to his computer. He gasped.

His school paper had disappeared. In its place was a gray box reading,

'Microsoft Word has performed an illegal operation for no apparent reason and had to shut down. We're sorry for the inconvenience.'

"Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!" Raito screamed, gripping his hair with his hands and twisting in his agony.

XxXxXxXxX

Dinner with L that night was quite an awkward affair. And not just because L served cotton candy followed by black forest cake, culminating in cinnamon custard.

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**OoOoO**

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Hope you enjoyed! :D


	3. L and the Death Note

**L and the Death Note **

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**OoOoO**

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Raito had been living with L for a little over a week before disaster struck. Which wasn't to say that things had been all fine and dandy before, because they HADN'T, but still, things got even worse.

For one thing, the investigation of the Kira case had been kicked back into full gear because of the recent slew of deaths (the O.C. cast) and this meant that in addition to his continuing battles with the paperclip, Raito also had to work side by side with L on a detective mission to capture himself. To top it all off, Raito was fatter than he had been since eighth grade, all because L forced inordinate amounts of sugar and candies down his throat at every meal. L insisted that the weight served Raito well, filling his curves out (Raito shuddered to think why L had been thinking about that), but Raito had never felt worse.

Things were about to get even more crazy, though. Raito and L were dining, if you could call it that, when Watari appeared and whispered something into L's ear. Raito didn't notice the change in atmosphere immediately, because he had been inwardly glowering over the latest atrocity of the paperclip, but his head snapped up when L called his name the third time.

"Yagami-kun, we have a new lead on the Kira case," said L seriously, dropping his napkin on the table and getting up. "I think we should go and check it out immediately."

Raito's stomach plummeted. What new lead? He hadn't done anything in the past few days out of line…had he?

But L lead him over to the main working area and turned on the television, where the announcer was talking about some video that they had received from Kira. It was a strange video, asking to meet the original Kira. Who was this person? Raito's mind flashed over numerous possibilities.

"I think I have an idea of who this new killer may be," said L sagely, chewing his thumb as he avidly stared at the screen.

"What? Who!?" asked Raito, feeling quite panicked.

"Well, Watari figured it out," L admitted, leading Raito over to the computer monitors. "We suspect…her!" he pointed to a picture of the up and coming model, Amane Misa.

"How the hell did you come to that conclusion?" Raito asked, utterly nonplussed.

"Actually, I have no idea." Said L. "To be honest, Watari does most of the thinking around here; I'm just the figurehead detective. But Watari seems convinced that she has something to with the case, so I'm going to keep an eye on her for a few days."

Raito stared at L, unable to believe that he had considered him a rival. "You—you've already set up perving cameras, haven't you?" he finally asked.

L nodded. "And they're high tech _investigation_ cameras," he corrected.

**XxX**

Raito and L spent the next several days watching Misa on camera. It was not as fun as it sounded. L got up every five seconds to get more candy from the kitchen, so Raito could never get into a comfortable position on the couch. And moreover, Raito couldn't really concentrate on the video because he was always worrying about the paperclip and what its next move would be.

"Oh my God!" said L suddenly, pointing at the videos.

"What! What is it?" asked Raito.

"She's got a tanline. Look." L pointed it out to Raito while Watari chuckled warmly in the background.

Raito shot a look of disbelief at L. Truth be told, the paperclip was a much more formidable opponent than L had ever been.

After five days of observation, there were more deaths and L himself visited the crime scene to collect evidence.

L carefully considered and put together his findings.

Raito entered the investigation room to find L examining a pile of junk with utmost intensity.

"What's that?" asked Raito, unconcernedly, dropping his backpack onto a desk and logging onto his laptop.

"Evidence from the case," said L pensively. "I think we've got her pinned down this time!"

"Why, what've you got?" Raito asked vaguely, typing up a review of the investigation so far, and making it GRAMMATICALLY PERFECT.

"Nothing particularly incriminating," said L sadly. "I just can't figure out the weapon used to do the killings. It's like this killer had some sort of supernatural powers to kill people just by will, or something…"

Raito hastily changed the subject. "What's the evidence?"

"Well, I did find this hair on the sofa!" said L triumphantly, holding out a small plastic bag.

Raito frowned at it.

"…what does that have to do with _anything?_"

"It's evidence!" said L crossly. "It has a lot to do with the crime!"

"L, that looks like _yours_," said Raito, tiredly. "Are you sure you didn't shed it while you were over there and then find it again and think it was evidence?"

"It's got to be Misa's!" L shouted.

"It's short and black!"

"_Maybe she has a cat_! Yes, that would explain everything!" said L suddenly, getting a faraway look in his eyes. "It all makes sense now! She has a cat that sheds and she keeps it in the room that she murders people in! YEAH!"

Raito rolled his eyes. "Anything else?"

"Yeah, I also found this paperclip," said L, holding out another plastic bag.

Every muscle in Raito's body tensed.

He slowly turned to look at the evidence.

"Check it out," said L, shaking the small plastic bag containing a single paperclip at Raito.

Raito's insides turned to ash. What was he going to do? In the back of his mind, he knew that the paperclip couldn't hurt him from inside the plastic bag, but he really didn't want to be any closer to it than necessary. On the other hand, refusing to examine the evidence would probably look suspicious from L's point of view.

"Raito-kun?" L asked, snapping Raito out of his reverie. "Take it."

"Get that thing away from me," said Raito, saying the first words that entered his mind. L be damned. Case be damned. Kira be damned, Raito was _not _touching that thing!

L frowned. "What's the matter? I just thought that we could maybe pick up some evidence like a fingerprint from it…"

"Get it _away_," Raito repeated, pushing his rolling chair so that he was on the other side of the room.

"Raito, what's gotten in to you? Come look at it!"

"NEVER!" Raito got up to run.

With surprising speed, L caught up to him and pinned him to the wall.

"Is Raito-kun afraid of paperclips?" he asked softly.

"No! That's ridiculous! Leave me alone!" Raito broke loose and scurried over to the desk to turn off his computer. However, as he tried to close the Word document, the paperclip popped up, asking him if he wanted to save the changes made to the document. It also tapped its tail at Raito while gazing at him in a very annoying, bulbous way.

"Bastard!" Raito cried, momentarily ignoring L. "Do I want to save the changes? _Do I want to save the changes?_ If I _wanted _to save the changes, wouldn't I have _saved_ them?! Who do you think you're talking to?"

_Ah, it's the computer talk again!_ thought L. _I'd better get a closer look._

He peered around the computer and saw a flash of the paperclip before it vanished with the Microsoft document.

"Aha! So Raito-kun _is_ afraid of paperclips!"

"I'm—not!" said Raito through gritted teeth. "It's just a phase—"

"Then why won't you look at the evidence?"

Raito screamed as L pushed the bag into his face.

"Come on, you're too cute to be scared of this," said L playfully, taking the paperclip out of the bag.

"L, I swear to Kira…" Raito was very pale. "If you...take _one step_ toward me with that thing....."

L grinned. "You'll what?"

"You don't want to know!"

"I really do."

"Why are you playing with evidence as important as that? How_ old_ are you?!"

L pounced on Raito, trying to touch the paperclip to his face.

Raito screamed and thrashed away, running to the other side of the room and almost making it out the door before L caught up and tried to tackle him.

"L—stop!" Raito begged, and L giggled slightly crazily.

In the scuffle, Raito didn't notice that his backpack had fallen off the desk. The Death Note had fallen out and skittered across the floor, coming to a rest at L's feet.

"What's this?" asked L, calming down so quickly it was almost scary and picking up the notebook.

Raito froze. This was it. This was the worst thing that could possibly ever happen to him. It was over now. And all because of that stupid, _fucking _paperclip.

"Death Note?" Read L aloud, looking at the cover. He glanced up at Raito. "What is this? It's yours, right?"

"Uh…yeah…" Raito's mouth had gone very dry. "That's just a…notebook of mine. A personal one. I'd like to have it back, if you don't mind."

"Now, now, now," L wagged his finger in Raito's face. "You dropped it, so I'm going to take a little peek before you can have it back."

"No!" Raito lunged at him as L started to open the book. "It's private! You can't see!"

"Oh, has Raito-chan written down his crushes in here?" L asked, putting a finger to his lips. "Just hold on; I won't look for long…"

"Stop—!"

Raito and L had another little scuffle, but L managed to open the Death Note and scan a few pages.

The childish smile melted off L's face.

Raito buried his face in his hands, bracing himself for death or imprisonment, or a future as L's sex slave, depending on L's mood.

"Raito-kun…" L said seriously, turning to face him with a blank look. "This is…not right."

"It's private…" Raito said again.

"Raito-kun, do you think I'm stupid? I know what this is." Said L in a deadpan voice.

There was a long pause. Raito closed his eyes.

Then L shouted, "It _was_ your list of old crushes! I _knew_ it!"

Raito's eyes snapped back open and he looked up, not daring to believe his ears.

"Yes, it all makes sense now…" said L, partially to himself, leafing through the Death Note. "Raito-kun didn't want me to see because he didn't want me to know that he is gay. But it's alright! Because, you may not have guessed it yet, but I'm gay too!"

"You're—kidding?" Raito managed, sarcasm coming through despite his shock. "I would never have guessed!"

"Yes, it's true!" said L grandly, batting his eyelashes. "I know I am very good at hiding it, but the truth comes out now. I've liked you since I first met you!"

Raito blanched.

L looked back down at the book. "Hm, you had crushes on Ray Penbar and Misora Naomi." He noted. "That's weird, they both died a few months ago, didn't they?" he shook his head. "What a strange coincidence. Well, here's your book back!" he dropped the Death Note back down to Raito.

Raito stared up at him, feeling utterly wrong footed. Was L a complete idiot or…was something else going on?

"More importantly," L knealt by Raito. "Now that the secret is out…"

Raito gulped.

"You have no excuse not to mate with me!" L said triumphantly.

"…"

"…"

"…_What!?" _Raito bellowed. "This is madness! I won't allow this!"

"Oh, but you must!" said L delightfully threading his fingertips together. "Otherwise, I might just tell your father that his cute little son is a little bit…_that_ way."

"You _wouldn't!_" Raito said harshly. "And you had no right to go through my notebook! This was all a mistake!"

"Fine," L abruptly stood up, and walked back to his seat. "I'm not going to force you if you don't want to. But you _will _like me, Raito. I guarantee it." He nailed Raito with one of those creepy stares.

Raito unsteadily got to his feet as well, trying to regain his composure. He stuffed the Death Note back into his bag. At least now he wouldn't have to hide it, since L had already seen it and determined that it was a list of crushes.

"I'm going to the bathroom," Raito announced. "I'll see you…around."

"Undoubtedly," L replied. Raito shuddered. That probably meant that L was going to be watching him on his creepy cameras later. Raito backed away and left the room., cursing the day that God had created paperclips.

* * *

**OoOoO**

* * *


End file.
